new hob, old oven

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When I moved into the new Casa Azahar last summer one thing was immediately clear – that I have a great landlord. He’s a very practical no-nonsense “get things done” kinda guy and doesn’t try to shirk responsibility. Case in point, shortly after moving in the entire central heating/cooling system died. And no problem – it was replaced and up and running within a few days. He also sent someone to install all the new ceiling lights I had bought, though this wasn’t really his responsibility. And whenever there has been any other issue he is always quick to send someone over to fix things. For my part, I take care of things I know are my responsibility and never bother him about “tonterías”.

BUT… one thing I’ve wanted to remedy was to replace the hob and oven that came with the place. They were both just very old and didn’t actually work well. In fact, the old oven didn’t really work at all, and ended up almost spoiling NYE dinner. So after a chat with my landlord we agreed that I would install my old oven from the old place, and he would buy a new hob. I cheekily asked if it could be an induction cooker, and he said okay! Yay!

To cut a longish story short… there was a problem with the first hob, but hey no problem, because I have a fabulous landlord. We met up last week and he asked me to choose the induction hob I wanted, and then today everything was installed. And I couldn’t be happier. Because even though there were issues with the first hob, it became very clear that if you can’t cook with gas, the very best next thing is induction. And now I have my new hob and old oven all properly installed. Very happy.

sunday song – if I were a rich man

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Today’s Sunday Song comes with a story. I’ve seen Pepe (see photo below) playing his accordion in the street and in bars for many years, but l never knew that he’d noticed me until a couple of weeks ago. He saw me walking down the street with a crutch (back incident, better now) and stopped and said “hey, what happened to you??”. And we chatted a bit. So now after all these years l know his name is Pepe and while much of his repertoire leaves me with some rather unfortunate earworms l always love it when he plays If l Were A Rich Man, which he invariably does. I also love that now I can say “hola Pepe!” when I see him.

So today’s song is dedicated to Pepe, along with one of the most joyous performances of all time, by the amazing Topol.

my first pedi!

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So it was almost two months ago that I talked about getting a professional pedicure, but then I bought the foot sander gizmo and thought that would be good enough. Also, I wasn’t sure where to go. Then yesterday evening I was out for a walk and remembered that when Elaine was here last year she mentioned having had a wonderful pedi at El Corte Inglés. So I headed over there and as luck would have it, there was one spare appointment open. And it was great.

Gotta admit that with the foot sander I am taking better care of my heels, but cuticles, etc were still a mess. Not a problem! They use an eensy little sander on those (and it didn’t hurt a bit Ann!). The best part was the massage before putting on about a centimetre thick whack of nail stuff. She even painted on fake toenails on my baby toes (which basically have no nails) which I thought was a nice touch. I could see myself getting a bit addicted to pedis, but they’re a bit expensive, so I might wait and have just one more late summer, since I wear sandals until the end of October here. Also… new sandals!

face recognition

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I don’t know what took so long for me to do this, but today I finally activated the Face Recognition thingy on my iPhoneX. And hey, it’s great! Doesn’t work so well in low light, but then the number pad comes up for me to put in my passcode. The rest of the time I just look at my phone and it comes to life! I feel all powerful.  😉

With my previous iPhone6S I couldn’t use the fingerprint option because, well, I have no fingerprints. And because using the passcode all the time is a pain, I just never used one. But now I do! And so my phone is safer and I get to feel all powerful. Win-win.